Midlife has been hands-down the hardest time in my life. Nobody told me it would be this hard either, so I didn't expect it. Now that I'm getting to the other side, here are ten things I wish I'd known before my 45th birthday.
- You're probably already in perimenopause - which can begin ten years before menopause proper, so that weird anxiety and rage you feel could be due to declining estrogen. Also, many doctors will say your labs are fine, but bloodwork is an imprecise way to evaluate hormones at midlife because they act like drunk gamblers at the craps table. Find a provider who specializes in menopause care, who listens and believes you when you describe your symptoms.
- Feeling lost/stuck at midlife is normal - but the way our culture talks about it is dumb, so people keep quiet about it. Thank God that's changing, because midlife is actually an important developmental stage, like adolescence. You're supposed to live differently in the second half of life - what we call the second mountain - but first, you've got to BE with yourself in the midlife valley. It's where we get honest, dropping bags we don't need, picking up ones we do, and changing shoes we've long outgrown. Most people avoid this work because they're scared of it. So they stride into their second half dragging heavy bags and wearing too-small shoes, and it shows. Midlife is messy and uncomfortable, but utterly necessary. (Is this you? Click here for Midlife Reinvention Lab info - opening in October.)
- Everybody procrastinates/avoids - you're not broken or special. You're normal. Avoiding things that take effort or we might "fail" at is an evolutionary strategy our brains use to conserve energy and keep us safe. It's our default setting, so not procrastinating is the flex, because we're choosing courage over comfort and our brains hate that. Ironically, people treat their procrastination like a diagnosis, which allows them to talk about it rather than challenge it and get stuff done.
- The zero f*ks situation gets real - as you lose patience for other people's nonsense. You'll start taking boundary-setting seriously and people really won't like it. Learning how to set boundaries kindly and well is one thing, knowing how to hold them is another. At midlife, we quit going to extraordinary lengths, so others can go to zero lengths. Or as Barbara Kingsolver wrote in her fantastic novel Demon Copperhead “She was not in the business of throwing her life away so other people can stay shitfaced.”
- Believing you have a purpose implies the existence of a Purposer. Who is that to you? Midlife is a good time to get serious about questions like that. Who put me here and why? What must I do before I die? Fr. Richard Rohr in his breathtaking meditation on the second mountain - Falling Upward - wrote, “Life is a gift from God; what we do with it is our gift back to Him.” We know we all have singular gifts, but if we lack a grid for their source, it's harder to develop them with a mind toward giving them back. Who are you giving them back to? This is a thought worth pondering, because it can provide beautiful structure to your second mountain adventure.
- High performance and goodness don't make God love you more. You're already perfectly and fully loved as you are, even if you sit on your sweet buns the rest of your life. God isn't asking you to be good or more perfect by following the rules better than anybody else, he's asking you to dwell with him in Love and make things - like a Kindergartener does at school with her finger paints.
- Stillness may feel impossible, but it is the portal. You may wrestle with prayer and meditation, say you're not good at it and avoid it, but persist at all costs. Because it's in stillness that you get to know yourself and God. Of course the enemy of your soul opposes this in every possible way. Here's a tool I'm finding helpful since this is a struggle for me.
- Persist with everything else too. You will want to quit 10,000 times at something your soul is called to do. Don't you dare, because as you persist, new things are born, and you will create more things based on those things. Of course you can't see how it will all work out right now. You have to trust and walk, cry and walk, be afraid and walk. The decision to do so will lead you somewhere interesting. The goal is never the goal, by the way, the goal is the person you become in pursuit of the goal.
- Your second-mountain purpose is built, not found. Midlife is the time to get honest about who you are now and what you want to do to with the rest of your life. Stop waiting for the path to become clear before you begin though, because then you never will. Take the steps you know now based on who you are now. Follow your hunches. As my Vietnam vet buddy Jack told me years ago: "Erin, sometimes you've got to do something, even if it's wrong, rather than wait around to get your ass shot off."
- Gin up your courage and take action. Failure isn't real as long as you learn from what happens and keep going. Humiliation, loss and grief are real, but when we accept the pain and learn gently from it, we get smarter and stronger. Anybody who has done something interesting with their life knows this is true, and the greatest regret of the dying is not ginning up the courage to live the lives they wanted to.
These are just a few of the 10,000 things I've learned the hard way. I hope one or two of them help you.
ps. I mentioned Midlife Reinvention Lab. It's where we focus on the messy but necessary deconstruction that is midlife, and build something beautiful in its wake. Who were you before the world told you who to be? Hop on the waitlist here, and I'll let you know when it opens.
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